May 11, 2024 – 5:23 pm
Photograph: Patrick Pleul/DPA via AFP
German police clashed with an estimated 800 to 1,000 climate protesters on Friday at the Tesla factory in Gruenheide, near Berlin, after demonstrators tried to storm the building. The demonstrators were protesting against the expansion of the factory. According to the BBC Several people were injured, including three policemen. Finally, the police prevented the activists from entering the building and arrested several people.
Some campaign participants have been camping in the Gruenheide Forest since February. On Friday, participants in a series of Block Tesla and Disrupt Elon protests blocked the nearby freeway, occupied part of the highway, and picketed the tracks to disrupt rail traffic. The demonstrators broke through the security cordon imposed by the police and entered the factory area, and one video documented by the BBC shows them targeting a building in the northeast corner of the so-called Gigafactory. In the end, the demonstrators did not enter the facility.
Tesla announced at the beginning of the week that the site would be closed due to the demonstration, and employees could work from home based on the company's statement. Elon Musk wrote on X about the group's failure to storm the factory, then in another post called the crowd left-wing protesters.
The group called Disrupt Tesla has announced the protests for May 8-12, meaning the protests will continue through the weekend. On their page they say I want to stop it with the protestsAfter three additional expansion phases, the factory located on the outskirts of Berlin will become the largest car factory in Europe. The Gigafactory already produces 250,000 cars annually, and after expansions, this number will rise to one million cars. Elon Musk has been referred to as a misogynistic Twitter fascist and uses his brand to promote electric cars as a green alternative to internal combustion engines. But, according to the group, electric cars are not a solution, they are a continuation of the “individual transportation madness,” just by different means. “This is neither sustainable nor environmentally friendly,” they write.
Based on German press news The night was quietThe protests continued on Saturday. Tesla has not yet issued a statement on this matter.
